Forecast updates for front-end SPE companies and points to watch in Q1 results

Research evidence excerpt

Forecast updates for front-end SPE companies and points to watch in Q1 results

Forecast updates for front-end SPE companies Global Markets Research

and points to watch in Q1 results 22 July 2026

EQUITY: JAPAN SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT

Research Analysts

We raise forecasts primarily to reflect WFE market Japan semiconductor production

equipment

We think investors will continue to prefer front-end SPE stocks in near Atsushi Yoshioka - NSC

term as price hike story is gradually priced in atsushi.yoshioka@nomura.com

+81 3 6703 1176

We hike WFE market estimates, raise earnings forecasts for front-end SPE

companies

We raised our earnings forecasts for front-end SPE producers Tokyo Electron [8035]

(Buy) and Kokusai Electric [6525] (Buy) on 22 July, primarily to reflect upward revisions to

our forecasts for the WFE market (Figure 2). We factored in recent comments by SPE

companies as well as greater-than-expected capex at TSMC and announcements of

longer-term capex plans by South Korean memory producers (see our 3 July 2026 report

JapanSPEsector:MajorinvestmentplansinSouthKorea). Inquiries on the Chinese

WFE market also look to have picked up since May, and we now think the Chinese market

will show modest growth, versus our previous forecast of flat growth. While we expect

increased equipment volumes to drive growth in principle, we think premium pricing in

response to customer demands for faster delivery and conditions being more conducive to

cost pass-throughs than they were before will help the WFE market to grow by more than

we had previously envisioned.

Points to watch for front-end SPE: Tokyo Electron kicking off price hikes across the

industry, risk of capacity constraints

Share prices of front-end SPE companies rose after the release of 26/3 Q4 results, which